1. Field of the Exemplary Embodiments of the Invention
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention generally relate to the field of digital interactive video calls, and their utilization for purposes other than that of person to person video call. Furthermore, exemplary embodiments of this invention are for a system that utilizes present day video call capable equipment, in order to enable a new human interface for data entry, retrieval, and manipulation. The new human interface is based on the user showing the objects that he or she wants to access or manipulate to the camera of the video-call device, and a server on the other end recognizing these objects and taking the appropriate actions. Hence, exemplary embodiments of this invention utilize the video call person to person (P2P) system in order to facilitate a novel kind of person to machine interaction.
Certain definitions are applied throughout this document. These definitions are provided merely to define the terms used in the related art techniques and to describe non-limiting, exemplary embodiments of the present invention. It will be appreciated that the following definitions are not limitative of any claims in any way.
These are the definitions that are applied in this document:
“Computational facility” means any computer, combination of computers, or other equipment performing computations, that can process the information sent by an imaging device. Some examples would be the local processor in the imaging device, a remote server, or a combination of the local processor and the remote server.
“Displayed” or “printed”, when used in conjunction with an imaged document, is used expansively to mean that an object to be imaged is captured on a physical substance (as by, for example, the impression of ink on a paper or a paper-like substance, or by embossing on plastic or metal), or is captured on a display device (such as LED displays, LCD displays, CRTs, plasma displays, ATM displays, meter reading equipment or cell phone displays).
“Form” means any document (displayed or printed) where certain designated areas in this document are to be filled by handwriting or printed data. Some examples of forms are a typical printed information form where the user fills in personal details, a multiple choice exam form, a shopping web-page where the user has to fill in details, and a bank check.
“Image” means any image or multiplicity of images of a specific object, including, for example, a digital picture, a video clip, or a series of images.
“Image recognition” means an array of techniques for recognizing various objects in images and video data. These techniques include, among others, optical character recognition (OCR), optical mark recognition (OMR), barcode recognition, alphanumeric data detection, logo and graphical symbols recognition, face recognition, and recognition of special marks.
“Imaging device” means any equipment for digital image capture and sending, including, for example, 3G videophones, a PC with a webcam, a digital camera, a cellular phone with a camera, a videophone, or a camera equipped PDA, video conferencing device, or a personal computer tethered to a camera, or a laptop with 3G modem card.
“Network connectivity” means a connection to a one-to-one or one-to-many data transmission network. Examples of the transmission network to which connectivity might be applied include a wireless 2G or 3G network, the Internet, an Ethernet network, and a private data network (for say security purposes). The connectivity could be achieved in any number of ways, including, for example, wireless communication, cable, an Infrared connection, Bluetooth, a USB connection, a Firewire connection, or a WiFi link.
“User” refers to the imaging device user. The imaging device user may be a human user, or an automated or semi-automatic system. Such a system could be, for example, a security system, which could be fully automated (meaning without direct human intervention) or semi-automatic (meaning that the system would be tied directly to specific people or to specific functions conducted by humans).
“Video call” means two-way and one-way video calls, including, for example, calls performed via computers with web-cams. Any connection performed by an imaging device with a data connection and with video capture and sending capabilities, could be included with the definition of “video call”. The video call is performed from a user to a computational facility, which takes actions according to the video data.
“Video data” is any data that can be encapsulated in a video format, such as a series of images, streaming video, video presentation, or film.
2. Description of the Related Art
Present day digital data networks allow for a variety of different methods for performing a video call from a fixed, tethered, or mobile device. Some typical examples are: